A former Los Angeles Times Staff writer Laurie Becklund, battled breast cancer since 1996. Earlier this year she knew her time is limited, and as she greeted her last few months, she wrote an opinion piece “As I Lay Dying” about her story. Becklund Died February 8 of this year. This is what she wanted you to know about breast cancer: Early detection does not cure cancer.
To detect a cancer early in many cases means to catch it before it produces symptoms. That is a problem, because not every precancerous condition will actually become cancer or not the type of cancer that can affect a person’s life, but every cases treated as if it was the same type of cancer. Mammogram screening is responsible for about 25% of over diagnosis in breast cancer, according to an article published in Oxford Journals. The over diagnosis may harm patients and lead to “overuse of anticancer therapies” such as chemotherapy.
31% over diagnosed – Another article by the New England Journal of Medicine estimated that in 2008, 70,000 US women were over diagnosed with breast cancer, which is a shocking 31% of all breast cancer diagnoses.
The first time Becklund discovered a lump in her breast was in 1996 during a self exam, she was treated by a lumpectomy and radiation. She had the most “curable” type of breast cancer. Five years after the treatment her doctor told her she had minimal chance of it ever coming back. Yet, in 2009, she received a diagnosis of stage IV breast cancer that spread to her bones, liver, lungs and brain. Metastatic cancer is “cancer that has spread from the place where it first started to another place in the body,” states cancer.org.
According to a nonprofit patient advocacy group Metastatic Breast Cancer Network (MBCN) breast cancer itself does not kill, instead breast cancer patients die from cancer cells traveling to other vital organs.
In the video below, Becklund speaks to an audience and recounts her journey with metastatic breast cancer. Please help us create more awareness by sharing this article!